Technology boosters focus on growth

By Erika D. Smith

Hundreds of people with a interest in Indiana's technical school sector gathered in Business District Capital Of Indiana on Friday to give themselves a corporate rap on the back.

The 10th yearly TechPoint Acme offered participants a topographic point for networking, workshops and addresses by a "who's who" listing of enterprisers and politicians. The advocacy grouping said about 1,200 people registered to go to -- far more than than the 800 or 900 who came last year.

Unlike last year, TechPoint didn't let go of a study on the position of Indiana's economical public presentation in technology. The grouping is compiling a broader, work-force-related study that volition be released in a few months.

Instead, this twelvemonth attendants used the acme to reflect on the technical school sector's growth.

"We have got 15 certified technical school Parks around the state. Imagine that," Bokkos Brumbarger, president of TechPoint's board and chief executive officer of BitWise Solutions, told the crowd. "Ten old age ago, you couldn't spell incubator."

He and others touted Indiana's advancement in nurturing technical school companies enough to lend $1 billion to the economic system over the past decade, deploying broadband Internet entree to distant regions, cultivating support for start-ups and even developing a niche in nanotechnology.

Several software system companies have got announced programs to spread out in the past year. Among them: Interactive Intelligence, ExactTarget, Aprimo, Brightpoint, angel Learning, DyKnow, Cantaloupe television and ChaCha.

"That's really rather phenomenal when you look at where Hoosier State was 10 old age ago," said Mark Hill, managing spouse of Collina Ventures and co-founder of software system shaper Baker Hill.

TechPoint itself have had a batch of growing in the past year.

In December, its members voted to unify with Central Hoosier State Corporate Partnership, an confederation of CEOs and university presidents focused on regional economical growth. That amalgamation -- and the private support for trading operations that came with it -- helped TechPoint refocus on advocacy and solving jobs solely for the information engineering sector.

In the past, TechPoint did as much cheerleading for life sciences, advanced manufacturing and logistics as it did for information technology. Under CICP, TechPoint's sister groupings BioCrossroads and Conexus Hoosier State now stand for those industries.

Gov. Mitch Daniels said engineerings that come up from TechPoint's members aid all industries in Indiana. He said he sees a "fabulous future" for the sector -- as long as it goes on to promote entrepreneurship.

"We desire you to invent. We desire you to discover," Daniels said. "We desire you to take those innovations to market."